#the love of god
At Sinai the voice of God spoke from the midst of the fire, an event that foreshadowed the great advent of the King and Lawgiver Himself, when the Eternal Word would become flesh and dwell with us. Any theology that regards God as entirely transcendent (i.e., God is beyond any analogy with the finite) will have a problem with divine immanence (i.e., God is inherent within the finite), since the highness, holiness, and perfection of God will make Him seem distant, outside of us, far away, and unknown… Incarnational theology, on the other hand, manifests the nearness of God to disclose the divine empathy. Indeed, the LORD became “Immanuel,” “God with us,” to share our mortal condition, to know our pain, and to experience what it means to be wounded by sin, to be abandoned, alienated, forsaken. The “Eternal made flesh” bridges the gap between the realm of the infinitely transcendent One, and the finite world of people lost within their sinful frailty. We therefore celebrate the giving of the Torah both at Sinai and especially the giving of the “Living Torah” at Bethlehem with the birth of Messiah. We rejoice that God is indeed the King and Ruler over all, but we further affirm that God’s authority and rule extends to all worlds– including the realm of our finitude and need.
John J. Parsons
‘If you ask for bread, your heavenly Father will not give you a stone.’ The sages call this a kal va'chomer inference (i.e., קַל וְחמר, “light and weighty”), namely, that if a light condition is true, then a heavier one is certainly true. Jesus used this kind of reasoning all the time: If God cares for the needs of the birds of the air, how much more (kal va'chomer) will He care for your needs? (Matt. 6:26). If God so clothes the grass of the field, how much more (kal va'chomer) will He clothe you (Matt. 6:30)? If your heavenly Father knows the number of hairs on your head, surely He knows the state of your soul. And if God wants us to walk in righteousness, kal va'chomer does He want us to know His love. Only God can give to us the love for Him that He fully knows we so desperately need; only God can deliver us from our “disordered loves” to take hold of what is truly essential. All we can do is ask, and keep on asking- even as we struggle on, despite ourselves- until we begin to understand what we really need.It’s as if we are constantly being asked, “Is this what you want?” and our choices confess the truthof what we believe. Only God does the miracle of real change within the human heart- only God can give life from the dead!
John J. Parsons
So, I tell you this: Do not be thinking all the time about how to stay alive. Do not have trouble in your mind about the food and drink that you need. Do not always be thinking about the clothes that you need to wear. Your life is more important than the food that you eat. Your body is more important than your clothes… Even if you are always thinking about your life, you cannot make it go on any longer, not even by one hour! [The length of your life will always be in God’s hands.] It is God that gives [you each new day, and the things you need to get through it.] God will certainly take care of you, much more than He takes care of the [birds and the] grass. [If He cares for even a single flower so tenderly, do you think He would overlook you, His child?] You should trust Him more than you do! So, do not have trouble in your mind about these things.Do not always say, “What will we eat?”, or “What will we drink?”, or “What will we wear?” People who do not know God are always thinking about these things. But as for you, your Father in heaven knows that you need them. Instead [of worrying, then], always think about the things that are important in the kingdom of heaven. Always do what God shows you is right. Then He will also give you the things that you need each day.
Matthew 6:25, 27, 30-33 EASY
